Ode To A Locker

THOU still unravish’d space of cliche quotes, Thou foster-child of fastballs and frustration, Sylvan closer of games, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than your 20 K’s: What glass-arm’d legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Hohokam or the dales of Wrigleyville? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to stay healthy? What slurves and sliders? What wild beaning of leadoff men? Heard games are sweet, but those seen in HD Are sweeter; therefore, ye DVR, play on; Not to the sabermetrician, but, more endear’d, Show thine 20 K’s to the true fans of no sense: Fair youth, sun drench’d in bleachers be, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can the ivy be bare; Bold Kid K, never, never canst thou win the Series, Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve; You cannot stay healthy, though thou hast not weakness, For ever wilt thou love, and pray it doth not stay fair! Ah, happy, happy Aboriginals! that cannot know Your shoulder woes, thee and Prior never bid the Spring adieu; And, happy fireballer, unwearièd, For ever piping cheese into the zone; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d, For ever bruis’d, and for ever blister’d; All mouth-breathing human passion from TribCo comes, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d, A slugger spurn’d, and a locker retired. If you don’t follow, the Cubs are “retiring” Kerry Wood’s locker. They videotape and smear Sammy, but they enshrine Kerry’s locker. I love Kerry, one of my favorite Cubs, ever, but Sosa meant far more to the franchise than Kerry. This is just unfathomably stupid. Oh, and if you don’t get the poem, for fuck’s sake, read some Keats.